Obama in Palo Alto: Fundraising with the Rich Radicals

This sign gave me an idea of how we can bridge the gap between the progressives and the Tea Party: How about we impose a big “carbon tax” to replace the income tax, which could then be abolished? A two-fer! Everyone’s happy.

The KKK (Keystone Kalamity Knockers) put together an unwieldy but visually effective full-size pipeline mockup and paraded it through the crowd.

Needless to say, the TV camera crews followed them around; the media always dutifully nibbles at the protesters’ lens-bait.

Meanwhile, this more modest home-spun faux-pipeline was going unphotographed, so I took pity on it.

Final word goes to an unapologetic Obama-basher.

And remember our cutesy entrepreneurial lemonade stand? Well, just as the anti-carbon progressives try to crush the overall American economy underfoot, on a smaller but poignantly symbolic scale, Palo Alto’s anti-carbon protesters essentially put the lemonade stand out of business as the crowds drove away all the customers by making the retail environment business-unfriendly. Is this our future in miniature?

UPDATE:

Earlier, while I was chatting with the neighbors, one of them said that she knew someone who shared a backyard fence with the McCues, and that she was going to see if he could surreptitiously record Obama’s speech to the fundraiser. I expressed skepticism that this would even be possible, due to tight security — but lo and behold, they managed to pull it off. Here’s a secretly recorded two-part video of Obama’s speech recorded through the McCues’ back fence (he’s not very visible, but the audio is clear enough):

Pretty trite, actually, and obviously a scripted speech.

Afterward:

Stung by criticism that he had once again swooped over Northern California to drain it of cash without so much as making even one on-the-record speech (much less holding a public event), Obama hastily scheduled a press conference this morning in San Jose . . . where the big take-away news is that his handlers forgot to place a pre-printed speech in front of him, and without a teleprompter or notes, Obama was essentially tongue-tied and unable to speak extemporaneously:

Great photo-essay, Zombie! Living in a rural Midwestern county as I do makes your photos seem as if they were taken on Mars. Looking at the faces of the laughing, smiling, happy, rich beyond comprehension folks that have sold out to a Marxist punk is an awesome experience. It is hard to imagine what it must be like to wish to compel others to an existence that you would and will never endure …. and feeling so happy about it.

Zombie has done it again, but this time the truth he exposed with his camera is even more revealing. Instead of the indolent riff-raff hanging out at OWS events or slightly mad exhibitionists protesting this or that, he has given us a look at the people whose cash greases the wheels of the Obama machine. They are very boring white people. Their display of wealth is predictable and boring - even their children and dogs have a tediously boring sameness. The brilliant insertion of Obama being Obama without a speech written by someone else showed him to be just as mind-numbingly boring as all his cookie-cutter rich supporters. I salute you, Zombie.

No one describes the leftist bazillionaires of Palo Alto better than Victor Davis Hanson. No vulgar industries shall pollute their cozy environmental heaven - yet they reach out politically and interfere with many elements of agricultural practices on the far side of the State, whence cometh the employment for the brown-skinned who are unlucky enough to achieve the status of valet-to-the-progressive-nobility.

Earlier, while I was chatting with one of the neighbors, one of them said that she knew someone who shared a backyard fence with the McCues, and that she was going to see if he could surreptitiously record Obama’s speech to the fundraiser. I expressed skepticism that the would even be possible, due to tight security, but lo and behold, they managed to pull it off. Here’s a secretly recorded two-part video of Obama’s speech recorded through the back fence (he’s not very visible, but the audio is clear enough): ...[videos]"

LOVED this photo essay, like many others you have done.The images speak volumes, and your commentary was perfect.

"Post-modern hypocritical millionaires" demonstrate the great value of history and sound political principles. Socio-economic status is clearly not an indicator of intelligence or education. These people are ignorant fools laying the groundwork for their own demise and those of their descendants. I wonder how they rationalize Barry's federal spending habits... "Bush spent lots, so why can't Obama?"... Another possible title for this piece could be "On Display: The Fruits of Demoralization".

Palo Alto resident here. Love Zombie's work (as I do here as well) but I think she is not entirely on target with her political description of my town. Palo Alto is not radical place at all. It's fairly apolitical and probably a bit less than 60% white in any case. We live in a liberal area, and Palo Alto just kind of goes with the flow. If you look at where those protesters are from, I doubt many of them were Palo Altans.

I'm not suggesting there's not a lot of limousine liberal stupidity and hypocrisy here-- there absolutely is. But there are precious few radicals of any kind here. It's a far cry from Berkeley (which to be fair, Zombie notes) San Francisco, or even Marin. Most people in this town are in tech execs of various stripes-- they care about making money, having a good school district for their kids and hanging out with their friends and neighbors.

I don't mean to indicate their politics aren't stupid. They certainly are. But Schwarzenegger and Angelides split the vote here in the 2006 Governors race. It's not beyond hope for the GOP, once more residents here start seeing the effect of Obama's tax hikes, and perhaps begin to wake up to the way the Democrats are flushing the state, and the country, down the drain.

Thanks for the further insight. Actually, my description was referring specifically to the Crescent Park neighborhood within Palo Alto (where I walked around and where the event took place), which is richer, whiter, and more liberal than is the overall city of Palo Alto.

True, Stanford and environs is historically more conservative than U.C. Berkeley + town (Stanford hosts the Hoover Institute, for example), but the "limousine liberal" component seems to be on the definite upswing, especially with the arrival of Obama on the political scene. (Though the recent scandals I think are a watershed moment and it it no longer cool or even respectable to be pro-Obama anymore, at least among the cognoscenti, spelling the eventual total demise of Obama-mania.)

Zombie, sure hope you're right about the cognoscenti souring on Obama. Thank you for another wonderful photo essay. It put me in mind of Tom Wolfe's "Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers", but forty years later and with pictures. The West Coast spawn of Leonard Bernstein and his rich friends have indeed, in your perfect phrase, become "Postmodern Hypocritical Millionaires". The shot of the brown-skinned valets lined up to park hundred thousand dollar cars said it all. Love your work!

There is a certain irony in using moppets with a Potemkin lemonade stand to shill for Obama, given that there have been news stories galore in the last few years about genuine lemonade stands being shut down in communities across the country because they violate some ramped-up version of EPA regulations.

Rush talks about the Low Information Voters, Obama talked about the Bitter Clingers, now you have given this group of very intelligent, but very, very strange individuals a very appropriate name: "The Postmodern Hypocritical Millionaires"

I read the parallel article on the link to The Daily Kos and while it was "like your report had been given a lobotomy..." it was the comments after that were the most - for lack of a better word - enlightening.

Comment after comment was about the impending catastrophe of climate change, or the perils of the keystone pipeline; things they clearly know nothing about.

I was reminded of Will Rogers observation that: "the problem with most people isn't what they don't know; its what they KNOW that isn't so."

Did those small business owners pay city, state and local taxes on their product? Are they exempt for non payment of mandated employee health care benefits because of their part time status? And...I have to wonder if I ordered a "Demonade" online, would shipping be included?

Kipling wrote of "The White Man's Burden". Liberals, while they don't call it by this name, clearly believe they must , no they have been given some divine calling to, bear "The Liberal's Burden", which is to make laws and rules to limit what every one else can do. And they MUST do it for the betterment of everyone ELSE.

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